1 year after destructive flood, CTV News Montreal unveils new virtual reality set

The CTV Montreal station launches a new VR set a year after a flood destroyed its offices, marking a fresh start for its newscasts.

The CTV News Montreal newscasts will be looking a little different starting Monday as the station unveils its brand new virtual reality (VR) set.

• READ MORE: CTV News Montreal broadcasts affected by water main break

“This innovative, new virtual reality studio not only delivers a visually striking news environment for our viewers, it also allows us to tell stories in dynamic new ways,” said Jean-Philippe Pineault, general manager of Quebec news at Bell Media. “Building on the success following Noovo Info’s transition to a virtual set, and thanks to the technological advances offered by this state-of-the-art studio, we will continue to evolve our newscasts for years to come.”

The new set comes a little over one year after a devastating flood destroyed the CTV News offices in Montreal’s Ville-Marie borough.

At 6 a.m. on Aug. 16, 2024, a large water main burst on René-Lévesque Boulevard and de Lorimier Avenue, sending water gushing through the streets, flooding offices and homes.

Half an hour later, a massive geyser erupted, sending water 20 metres into the air and plunging 150,000 homes under a boil water advisory.

• READ MORE: Major water main break in Montreal telling of ageing infrastructure, says expert

“I found myself standing on the corner of René-Lévesque [Boulevard] and Papineau [Avenue] wondering what had happened to our studio,” recalls CTV News at 6 Anchor Mutsumi Takahashi.

The company lost everything from computers to recording equipment and news vehicles, but as the credo goes, “the show must go on.”

“We didn’t miss a single show during that whole time,” said Chris Bury, CTV News Montreal director of information programming. “The shows didn’t resemble what they normally look like, but we were always on the air in one form or another.”

Now, after many long hours and behind-the-scenes problem-solving, CTV News Montreal is starting a new chapter with the help of its new VR studio.

“It’s just going to be a lot bigger and more dynamic, and the pictures you’re seeing behind the anchor will be more appealing,” said Bury. “It has been a long push to come to this, to get to this point.”

For her part, Takahashi says she has one message to viewers as a year of trials and tribulations finally comes to a close.

• READ MORE: Large area of Montreal under boil-water advisory after ‘enormous’ water main erupts

“I’d like to thank them for bearing with us, with all the different locations, all the noise that they might hear while I’m doing the newscast,” she said. “What we do is journalism. We cover the news. We tell the stories of our communities. That’s what we do, and that’s something that’s not going to change.”

Check out CTV News Montreal’s new virtual reality studio during all newscasts, including CTV News at 5 with Maya Johnson, CTV News at 6 with Mutsumi Takahashi, CTV News at 11:30 with Caroline Van Vlaardingen, as well as the 6 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. weekend shows.

With files from CTV News’ Kelly Greig.